1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pointing device and a mobile telephone, and more particularly, concerns a pointing device that is superior in operability for use with a fingertip and a mobile telephone using such a device.
2. Description of the Background Art
An explanation will be given of a mobile telephone disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 11-32113 as one example of conventional mobile telephones. Referring to FIG. 20, a speaker 102, an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) 103, a specific function key 104, a track ball 105 and a microphone 106 are placed on the front face of the mobile telephone. Moreover, an antenna 101 is attached to an upper portion of the mobile telephone.
In particular, track ball 105 is rotatable in longitudinal and lateral four directions. A plurality of menus are displayed on LCD 103. A desired menu is selected from the plurality of menus by properly rotating track ball 105 in the four directions to set a pointer to the corresponding menu and pushing another selection key (not shown). Thus, the operation corresponding to the menu is carried out.
However, the above-mentioned mobile telephone has the following problems. It is easy to rotate track ball 105 in the four directions so as to freely set the pointer to any one of the menus displayed on LCD 103; however, in order to select the menu to which the pointer has been set, another selection key needs to be pushed, raising a problem of poor operability.
Moreover, track ball 105, which needs to have a sufficiently large size so as to enable the rotation operation, causes a difficulty in miniaturizing the mobile telephone. Another problem is that dusts, etc. tend to enter the track ball, with the result that the intruded dusts interrupts the smooth shift of the pointer.